3,208 research outputs found
PP-049 The novel role of downstream of kinase-1 in the ovalbumin-induced murine model of asthma
Freshwater Ecosystems: From Models to Applications
Freshwater ecosystems—lakes and streams—are being endangered by agricultural, urban, and industrial pollution; hydraulic engineering; and overexploitation, which threaten their capacity to provide important services (recreation and supply of food and clean water, among others). Ecological modeling may be employed to estimate impacts and analyze mitigation strategies. Toy models are easy to construct, but applying them to real-world problems is often challenging. Here, we show in two case studies how the connection from model to application can be made. The first study analyzes whether and how the impact of climatic change on a mostly recreational fishery in an Alpine lake can be mitigated, while the second looks at restoring biodiversity after cleaning up pollution in a Korean river system, using aquatic insects, which play an essential functional role in aquatic food-webs and are very sensitive to water quality, as indicators of ecosystem health. These studies highlight the ability of process-based eco-evolutionary models to generate testable hypotheses and contribute solutions to real-world problems
Methods for reduced cost and lower sample prep volumes for genetic analysis applications
As the cost of NGS has decreased, the library preparation cost has become a larger portion of the total expenditure. This is especially true for high-throughput applications, such as single-cell analysis. Therefore, there is a need to develop methods that can not only study the transcriptomes of single cells, but can also feasibly analyze large numbers of single cells.
Miniaturizing the sample preparation volume provides the opportunity for significant cost savings. Using TTP Labtech’s mosquito liquid handlers, reagent and sample quantities can be scaled down to picogram values
Visual Depth Mapping from Monocular Images using Recurrent Convolutional Neural Networks
A reliable sense-and-avoid system is critical to enabling safe autonomous
operation of unmanned aircraft. Existing sense-and-avoid methods often require
specialized sensors that are too large or power intensive for use on small
unmanned vehicles. This paper presents a method to estimate object distances
based on visual image sequences, allowing for the use of low-cost, on-board
monocular cameras as simple collision avoidance sensors. We present a deep
recurrent convolutional neural network and training method to generate depth
maps from video sequences. Our network is trained using simulated camera and
depth data generated with Microsoft's AirSim simulator. Empirically, we show
that our model achieves superior performance compared to models generated using
prior methods.We further demonstrate that the method can be used for
sense-and-avoid of obstacles in simulation
Dirty Black Holes and Hairy Black Holes
An approach based on considerations of the non-classical energy momentum
tensor outside the event horizon of a black hole provides additional physical
insight into the nature of discrete quantum hair on black holes and its effect
on black hole temperature. Our analysis both extends previous work based on the
Euclidean action techniques, and corrects an omission in that work. We also
raise several issues related to the effects of instantons on black hole
thermodynamics and the relation between these effects and results in two
dimensional quantum field theory.Comment: 13 pages, Latex, submitted to Physical Review Letter
Atomistic origins of high-performance in hybrid halide perovskite solar cells
The performance of organometallic perovskite solar cells has rapidly
surpassed that of both conventional dye-sensitised and organic photovoltaics.
High power conversion efficiency can be realised in both mesoporous and
thin-film device architectures. We address the origin of this success in the
context of the materials chemistry and physics of the bulk perovskite as
described by electronic structure calculations. In addition to the basic
optoelectronic properties essential for an efficient photovoltaic device
(spectrally suitable band gap, high optical absorption, low carrier effective
masses), the materials are structurally and compositionally flexible. As we
show, hybrid perovskites exhibit spontaneous electric polarisation; we also
suggest ways in which this can be tuned through judicious choice of the organic
cation. The presence of ferroelectric domains will result in internal junctions
that may aid separation of photoexcited electron and hole pairs, and reduction
of recombination through segregation of charge carriers. The combination of
high dielectric constant and low effective mass promotes both Wannier-Mott
exciton separation and effective ionisation of donor and acceptor defects. The
photoferroic effect could be exploited in nanostructured films to generate a
higher open circuit voltage and may contribute to the current-voltage
hysteresis observed in perovskite solar cells.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Anaerobic Carbon Monoxide Dehydrogenase Diversity in the Homoacetogenic Hindgut Microbial Communities of Lower Termites and the Wood Roach
Anaerobic carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) is a key enzyme in the Wood-Ljungdahl (acetyl-CoA) pathway for acetogenesis performed by homoacetogenic bacteria. Acetate generated by gut bacteria via the acetyl-CoA pathway provides considerable nutrition to wood-feeding dictyopteran insects making CODH important to the obligate mutualism occurring between termites and their hindgut microbiota. To investigate CODH diversity in insect gut communities, we developed the first degenerate primers designed to amplify cooS genes, which encode the catalytic (β) subunit of anaerobic CODH enzyme complexes. These primers target over 68 million combinations of potential forward and reverse cooS primer-binding sequences. We used the primers to identify cooS genes in bacterial isolates from the hindgut of a phylogenetically lower termite and to sample cooS diversity present in a variety of insect hindgut microbial communities including those of three phylogenetically-lower termites, Zootermopsis nevadensis, Reticulitermes hesperus, and Incisitermes minor, a wood-feeding cockroach, Cryptocercus punctulatus, and an omnivorous cockroach, Periplaneta americana. In total, we sequenced and analyzed 151 different cooS genes. These genes encode proteins that group within one of three highly divergent CODH phylogenetic clades. Each insect gut community contained CODH variants from all three of these clades. The patterns of CODH diversity in these communities likely reflect differences in enzyme or physiological function, and suggest that a diversity of microbial species participate in homoacetogenesis in these communities
Development of the C-Band BPM System for ATF2
The ATF2 international collaboration is intending to demonstrate nanometre beam sizes required for the future Linear Colliders. An essential part of the beam diagnostics needed to achieve that goal is the high resolution cavity beam position monitors (BPMs). In this paper we report on the C-band system consisting of 32 BPMs spread over the whole length of the new ATF2 extraction beamline. We discuss the design of the BPMs and electronics, main features of the DAQ system, and the first operational experience with these BPMs
Band gap opening by two-dimensional manifestation of Peierls instability in graphene
Using first-principles calculations of graphene having high-symmetry
distortion or defects, we investigate band gap opening by chiral symmetry
breaking, or intervalley mixing, in graphene and show an intuitive picture of
understanding the gap opening in terms of local bonding and antibonding
hybridizations. We identify that the gap opening by chiral symmetry breaking in
honeycomb lattices is an ideal two-dimensional (2D) extension of the Peierls
metal-insulator transition in 1D linear lattices. We show that the spontaneous
Kekule distortion, a 2D version of the Peierls distortion, takes place in
biaxially strained graphene, leading to structural failure. We also show that
the gap opening in graphene antidots and armchair nanoribbons, which has been
attributed usually to quantum confinement effects, can be understood with the
chiral symmetry breaking
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